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Berry Tramel: Eddie Sutton documentary is a fathers-and-sons story about OSU coaching legend

The movie poster for "Eddie: The Costs of Greatness." [PHOTO PROVIDED]

Rex Chapman walked onto the Rupp Arena court, where filmmaker Christopher Hunt awaited. Hunt and his crew were in Lexington, Kentucky, conducting interviews for his documentary on Eddie Sutton.

“Rex walks in, and we greet each other, and he’s like, ‘yeah, man, I just got off the phone with Sean (Sutton),’” Hunt related. “‘He told me to tell you guys everything.’ I’m like, oh man, this is going to be good.”

Good it is. “EDDIE: The Costs of Greatness” has been completed, and it’s a winner for anyone with an affinity for OSU, college basketball or the classic story of fathers and sons.

Thanks to the Sutton family and people like Chapman, a Kentucky all-American who played for Sutton in the 1980s, the riveting story of a phenomenal career marred by personal demons is well-told by a variety of sources.

And the Sutton family itself, including Sean, the middle of three sons who played for his dad at both Kentucky and OSU, worked on his dad’s OSU staff for a dozen years and followed Eddie not only as the Cowboy head coach, but also in succumbing to substance abuse and losing that job.

At the heart of the film is a sins-of-the-father story.

The movie is so raw, its makers weren’t sure how the Suttons would receive it, after they saw it in a private screening in Tulsa several months ago.

“It hits pretty hard on some subjects,” said Chad Reineke, the film’s executive producer. “It wasn’t spoken, but there was a nervous tension, at least on the filmmakers’ side, of oh no, what are they going to think when they see this?

“There’s always a fear that the last frame rolls and the lights come on and they all say, absolutely not, you can’t show that to anybody.”

That was not the reaction.

“Was blown away by what a great job he (Hunt) did,” said Scott Sutton, Eddie’s youngest son and now an OSU assistant coach. “Golly, just a rollercoaster of emotions throughout the movie. Brought back so many wonderful times, laughs and smiles. Obviously a lot of tough times. Very, very emotional. I thought Sean was incredibly honest and real. It was tough to watch at times. But I thought it was wonderfully done.”

Hunt allowed me to preview the film. I won’t spoil the emotional content. You’ll want to see it for yourself and hopefully you soon will. The filmmakers had planned a screening during the Final Four in Atlanta with the U.S. Basketball Writers Association. Alas, the Final Four was canceled due to the coronavirus outbreak. And the film festival route is not an option, since the likes of Sundance, South by Southwest and Tribeca also have been canceled.

Now Reineke and Hunt plan to pitch the movie to a variety of distributors, such as ESPN, Netflix and HBO. ESPN, for example, is hurting for new content with the suspension of virtually all sports. But with the collapse of the economy, does any distributor have the budget for new acquisitions? So stay tuned on exactly when you’ll be able to view it.

Sutton, 84, is in poor health and not in condition to conduct interviews. Hunt was able to include some 2017 OSU Library interviews with Sutton.

The film ends with a scene showing the Sutton family receiving the 2019 phone call that Sutton did not make the Basketball Hall of Fame. But Sutton is again a Hall of Fame finalist in 2020 and is expected to be voted in this time. The announcement is due in April.

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Hunt, who grew up in Midwest City and attended OSU during the Desmond Mason/Gottlieb years of two decades ago, said he was first motivated to make the movie after Sutton’s repeated Hall of Fame snubs. But Hunt said the movie quickly morphed into something more.

“I had high hopes for the film,” Hunt said. “This film has exceeded all those expectations.”

Hunt was thrilled to get Clinton and Jones, big Arkansas fans from Sutton’s days of coaching the Razorbacks. Hunt also collected archival footage that either hasn’t been seen in decades or never at all, including some images from Sutton’s days growing up in Bucklin, Kansas. But the movie was made by the way Sean and his wife, Trina, shared their story.

“It turned into this beautiful father/son story that I had a hunch might exist, but the way it came together, I was really blown away by it,” Hunt said. “I’m particularly proud of the way Sean kind of opened up and was so honest with me. I thought it made the movie.”

Scott Sutton said the movie reaffirms in his mind his father’s Hall of Fame candidacy.

“Listen to the people that they interviewed,” Scott Sutton said. “He is a great man, he is a great coach, but he had flaws, as we all do. People that were voting, if they were holding that against him, I think this would have opened eyes a little bit about his humanity. This is a man who did a lot for a lot of people. Yes, he had some struggles. But he’s very deserving of being in the Hall of Fame.”

All of us knew some of the Sutton story, and some of us knew most of the Sutton story, but thanks to this film, now we know or will know the inside story on the House of Sutton.

Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. You can also view his personality page at oklahoman.com/berrytramel.

Berry Tramel

Berry Tramel, a lifelong Oklahoman, sports fan and newspaper reader, joined The Oklahoman in 1991 and has served as beat writer, assistant sports editor, sports editor and columnist. Tramel grew up reading four daily newspapers — The Oklahoman,...
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